EXETER – In a world where athletes are separated by inches and tenths of seconds, Stephen Sokach-Minnick will continue to try to compete for playing time.
Wyoming Area’s Sokach-Minnick has committed to play football on the National College Athletic Association Division I level at the University of Albany as a preferred walk-on.
Sokach-Minnick heads to the New York State school to try to land the specialist position of long snapper with the potential of landing a scholarship if he is successful.
Stephen follows his brother Tristan, who has played 15 games as Albany’s long snapper in the past two seasons and also made a pair of tackles in 2018.
“My brother and I started when I was in about seventh grade,” Stephen Sokach-Minnick said. “Just going to these camps, we saw how good you can get from them.
“We saw long snappers from places like Alabama and Clemson. They were all there competing. We just got inspired by that and we just wanted to work.”
The brothers traveled to camps run by Chris Rubio. Stephen has been to North Carolina, Florida and Nevada for the camps, which include instruction, then assessment of the athletes from one of the experts in the specialty.
“They measure accuracy and the accuracy could just be like inches,” he said. “And, they measure speed in tenths of a second.”
The Sokach-Minnick brothers and others at the camp work on the snaps for punts as well as field goals and extra points.
Stephen Sokach-Minnick was also a starting lineman on Wyoming Area’s 2018 championship team before suffering a broken leg in a game against GAR. He said the leg has healed and he is ready to compete in track and field in the spring.
In track, he has thrown the discus, shot put and javelin since his freshman season.
